Why Books Travel: Witi Ihimaera’s The Whale Rider and the Internationalisation of the Book Market

The article describes which institutions pursue which goals to ensure that contents of books 'travel' from one language area to another and takes "The Whale Rider" (1987) by Witi Ihimaera as the point of departure.In addition, the journey of this literary work from New Zealand to Germany is taken as a motive to characterise the very different book markets of Germany and New Zealand comparatively and to describe where and how they get in contact.Both is embedded in a specific, Book and Publishing Studies view of the internationalisation of the book market that is based on the interests of the agents.